Founder of the religious order known as the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola is one of Christian history's most direct and disciplined work that has remained a signficant piece into contemporary times. Born in Spain, he was wounded in combat and spent his recovery reading religious texts on the lives of Jesus and various saints. Later, beside the Cardoner River, he had a pivotal experience of God that led him to enter an even more impassioned pursuit of Christ. He was imprisoned for his beliefs, and by 1538, had established a group of spiritual companions who took vows of poverty, chastity, and loyalty to Pope Paul III alongside him. This group birthed the Jesuits. Jesuits, while formal and structured in their lives, were freed from medieval practices and thereby given space to enter the contemporary scene. This week's selection discusses how one can discern the spirits of God versus those of the enemy, with clarity and directness that evidences the long-standing value of Ignatius' contribution.
*When and how have you experienced distress or discomfort that has led you either to or away from God?
*When facing major decision making, how might these questions and rules for discernment become applicable?
*Foster writes in his conclusions that "God draws and encourages, Satan pushes and condemns." How have you experienced either of these?
1 comment:
Ignatius reminds me that it is the simplicity of life that the core elements of God's presence persist. The willfully contrived and created complexities of life seem, frequently, to provide the distractions of which Ignatius warns us. What seems needed then and now is a sense of the essential non-complex realization of the holy. God is not obscure and available only to a few. God is present and available to all. The extremes of magisterial orthodoxy do not like this. The extremes of evangelical orthodoxy do not like this. God likes it. That is good enough for me.
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